One look at the poster for “Reasonable Doubt” — a no-thrills thriller directed by Peter P. Croudins — tips you off that Samuel L. Jackson is probably not playing the good guy. This isn’t much of a spoiler; by the time we twig that Mr. Jackson’s character is something other than he appears, the writer, Peter A. Dowling (who also wrote, with Billy Ray, the 2005 twister “Flightplan”), has already lost interest.

Indifferent plotting aside, flaccid direction ensures that the movie’s morally compromised hero, Mitch Brockden (Dominic Cooper), an up-and-coming prosecutor, never secures our sympathy. So when a driving-while-wasted accident leaves Mitch believing that he caused a man’s death, and that an innocent Samaritan (Mr. Jackson) is about to take the fall, his subsequent attempt to derail the case seems of little consequence.

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Dominic Cooper is a young prosecutor.CreditLionsgate

In lieu of tension, the film is stuffed with crazed musical crescendos, amateurish structural feints and pregnant pauses that cry out for the familiar “chu-CHUNG” of a “Law & Order” scene change. Yet lurking behind the courtroom hanky-panky and Mr. Jackson’s intimidating biceps lies a wealth of familial shame, aroused by Mitch’s shady stepbrother (Ryan Robbins) and amplified by Brian Pearson’s downcast cinematography.

Had Mr. Croudins focused more on Mitch’s desire to distance himself from a wrong-side-of-the-tracks upbringing — and less on ticking genre boxes — his movie could only have been the better for it.